EXPERIENCE

I. MEDICAL MALPRACTICE CAUSING BRAIN DAMAGE OR DEATH

Anesthesia

  • Anesthesia medication error during delivery—maternal brain damage

  • Failure to intubate during general anesthesia for delivery—maternal death

  • Error in ventilator management during gall bladder surgery—death

  • Failure to recognize post-operative respiratory failure—death

Gynecology

  • Injury to ureter during hysterectomy and subsequent failure to recognize development of sepsis—brain damage

Obstetrics and Birth Injuries

  • Delay in delivery after uterine rupture during VBAC labor—newborn brain damage (cerebral palsy)

  • Failure to recognize mother’s post-delivery hypertension—stroke

  • Failure to attend mother in labor after fetal distress reported—newborn brain damage (cerebral palsy)

  • Failure to recognize fetal distress during labor—newborn brain damage (cerebral palsy)

  • Failure to screen during pregnancy to prevent Group B Streptococcal disease in newborn—neonatal brain damage

Emergency Room Medicine

  • Discharge of patient with ruptured duodenum due to trauma from truck accident—death

Hospital Administration

  • Negligent administration of emergency room—birth injury (newborn brain damage)

  • Negligent administration of obstetric service—birth injury (newborn brain damage)

  • Cover-up of cause of patient’s death

Hospital Liability for Negligence of a Nurse (Vicarious Liability)

  • Negligence of ER nurse—death

  • Negligence of labor and delivery nurse—birth injury (newborn brain damage)

  • Negligence of nurse anesthetist—maternal brain damage

Neurology

  • Inappropriate prolonged high dose steroid therapy and failure to monitor steroid immunosuppressive effects—life-threatening pneumocystis carinii pneumonia requiring lengthy treatment in ICU and causing permanent disability (plaintiff was a physician)

Nursing Home Negligence

  • Failure to recognize respiratory distress from developing pneumonia—death

Pediatrics

  • Failure to recognize developing sepsis in 3 year-old from duodenal rupture caused by minor abdominal trauma—brain damage

  • Delay in diagnosis of meningitis—brain damage

Radiology

  • Delay in diagnosis of breast cancer resulting from failure to recognize breast mass on mammogram—death

  • Error in prep for an intravenous pyelogram (IVP) causing kidney failure and cognitive impairment in 40 year-old man

Surgery

  • Injury to bile duct during gall bladder laparoscopy—sepsis, multiple surgeries and impaired cognition

II. DRUG PRODUCT LIABILITY

  • Hemophilia drugs contaminated with HIV causing epidemic of AIDS (individual cases and national litigation)

  • Intravenous immunoglobulin (Gammagard) contaminated with hepatitis C virus (national litigation)

III. MEDICAL DEVICE PRODUCT LIABILITY

  • Latex gloves with high latex allergen levels causing illness in healthcare workers (individual cases and national litigation)

IV. TOXIC TORT

  • Lung damage suffered by obstetrician exposed to toxic levels of latex allergens in her hospital

V. WHISTLEBLOWER (QUI TAM) CASES*

  • Unlawful promotion by pharmaceutical company of drug for treatment of traumatic bleeding

  • Unlawful billing of Medicare by gastroenterologist for incomplete colonoscopies

  • Unlawful promotion by medical device company of biliary stents for unauthorized use in blood vessels

  • Unlawful billing of Medicare by cancer center for use of single use vial oncology drugs for multiple patients

    *Consulting work involving work with experts and medical analyses.

VI. MEDICAL MALPRACTICE PERSONAL COUNSEL FOR PHYSICIANS

  • Oncologist not responsible for a nurse’s medication error

  • Oncologist not responsible for adverse effects of cancer drug

  • Pulmonologist not responsible for error of care flight nurse

  • Anesthesiologist not responsible for tech stealing vials of narcotics and replacing them with vials contaminated with hepatitis c virus

  • Obstetrician appropriately managed labor

  • Orthopedist not responsible for formation of scar tissue (fibrosis) affecting nerve roots after back surgery

  • Orthopedist not responsible for complication of hip surgery

  • Otolaryngologist not responsible for damage to bone caused by tumor